Are you on?

Can you imagine a day without your mobile phone? Without Facebook? Without Instagram? Without WhatsApp? Well honestly, this would be difficult for many of us, no?

Mobile phones and social media seem to be an integral part of our daily life. Many of us cannot imagine being without a mobile device for a few hours. Just have a look around you: when sitting at the bus station We could bet that about 70 % of the people are glued to their devices, surfing, chatting or playing around. Teenagers are talking to their friends on snapchat instead of meeting each other in town and interact face-to-face. It is the same scene when you go into a restaurant and see couples spending more time looking at their electronic devices than at their partner. Average users look at their phone about 150 times a day, according to some estimates. Smartphones are indeed causing us to interact less with others and their presence encourages to a certain extend anti-social behaviour.

Anti-social or hyper-social ?

Our cell phones do not only distract us from interacting with the people around us. Following a study from researchers of the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business their use has even been linked with more selfish and less engaging behaviour.

On the other hand, smartphones and social media channels allow us to meet new people and it is in our hands if we deepen these connections and get to know each other better. According to new research, dependence on technology even results from a desire and need to connect with other people. Following the team of cognitive anthropologists from the McGill University, addiction to mobile devices may be considered hyper-social and not anti-social.

In the end it seems that we still haven’t understood or accepted how mobile devices are changing and distorting our daily and social lives. They do in some cases really divorce us from ourselves and the real world around us.

Reflect yourself about how the use of your mobile phone and social media is affecting your life!

 

Sarah Melcher


Mady is looking back on 18 years of experience in the Luxembourgish media world. She quit her job at Revue to launch an online magazine in which importance will be given to what makes us feel good – inside and out.

Leave a Reply